Wednesday, July 04, 2012

On the Problem of Evil & Suffering

Atheists often argue against the existence of God, and specifically
an almighty and good God on the basis of the existence of evil and
suffering in the universe. The argument goes something like this:
God is all-powerful, loving, and perfect.

A perfect, good God would create a universe that was perfect (e.g., no evil and suffering).
The universe is not perfect but contains evil and suffering.
Therefore, God does not exist.

So
in short, either God is not good, or not all-powerful or he does not
exist, because if he did exist then surely he could stop all the
suffering. The atheist then concludes that both the idea of a bad God
and idea of a limited God makes no sense, therefore God must not exist.
Variations on this ages old theme exist but that is the gist of it.

So how does one answer this type of objection?

Most
apologists go into lengthy arguments concerning why a good and almighty
God could and does allow evil & suffering in the world. They will
usually get into the biblical fall of Lucifer and of man to explain how
such evils and sufferings came to be.

Forget all that for now. There is a much simpler way to demonstrate why this argument is utterly flawed.
First
you must see that in a universe with no God, there cannot be any
absolute moral values. Most atheists admit this. For example:

"Naturalistic
evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood
perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists;
3)no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in
life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent." -William B.
Provine, atheist professor of biology at Cornell University

"In
a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some
people are going to get hurt, and other people are going to get lucky;
and you won’t find any rhyme or reason to it, nor any justice. The
universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if
there is at the bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good.
Nothing but blind pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares.
DNA just is, and we dance to its music."Richard Dawkins, --Out of Eden,
page 133

"If there is no God, everything is permitted." - Jean Paul Sartre on Ivan Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevski's character

"Morality
is no more … than an adaptation, and as such has the same status as
such things as teeth and eyes and noses. . . . [M]orality is a creation
of the genes". - Michael Ruse

"Nature has no concern for good or bad, right or wrong. . . . We cannot get behind ethics." - Naturalist Simon Blackburn

Evolutionary biologist E. O. Wilson said that morality is just a survival mechanism. Ethics, he claims,

"is
an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate," and
"the way our biology enforces its ends is by making us think that there
is an objective higher code to which we are all subject."

Now how does one refute the atheist argument against God based on evil & suffering?

Easy, since without God, there is no good or evil. The atheist high priests, quoted above say so.

The
atheist thus shoots himself in the head again with such arguing against
God based on "there is so much evil". For such an argument becomes too
obviously wrong given that "no God = no evil", (as most atheist
philosophers themselves state).

Suffering becomes a mere amoral,
purposeless event in a cold uncaring cosmos. Or as Dawkins put it, a
blind, pitiless, indifferent universe. Suffering but without God
suffering is neither evil nor good nor "bad". Thus we see how the
atheist in using the existence of evil and suffering to refute the
existence of God is unwittingly assuming the existence of God in the
very argument itself!

Therefore, how can one claim God doesn't exist while admitting the existence of evil? If there is no God how does one define evil? Indeed, how does one claim that suffering is "wrong" in a universe without God?
One might even state,

"Evil exists. Therefore God exists."

The
fact that all men everywhere and at all times have recognized the
existence of evil, demonstrates the existence of a transcendent moral
law, else, evil does not exist. Things simply are what they are -
neither right nor wrong; neither evil or good.

Without an absolute
law giver, there can be no such thing as evil or good and since
atheists, as shown above, really do admit that without God there is no
real good or evil, how can they then contradict themselves by claiming
God doesn't exist based on it?!

Thus the atheists show a rather
amazing lack of perception, as always. But in this case it is a lack of
perception of their own arguments logical implications and flaws! To
argue against God based on the existence of evil is to argue for God
based on the existence of moral right and wrong! So when atheists use
the old "problem of pain and evil" argument they are unwittingly
admitting of a transcendent Law that defines evil by the existence of
absolute good - which is the ONLY way evil can be defined!
C.S. Lewis wrote,

"Truth and falsehood are opposed; but truth is the norm not of truth only but of falsehood also."–The Allegory of Love

Indeed, without God (ultimate truth) there is no reason to call anything at all "evil".

Thus
the whole "evil and suffering" based argument falls apart under its own
underlying assumptions! Thus, this argument actually does more to
uphold the existence of God than it can ever do to refute it!
Sadly, atheists do not and will not see this, such is the hardness of their hearts (and heads).